Eric uses Google Glass to learn to defend himself against a Terminator from the future, who’s set on killing him before he can become President of the United States. Sound far-fetched? Not so fast…

Lorenz Hideyoshi Ruwwe from The Young Masters came out to the West Coast and we teamed up to create Future Boss. With Shaun Finney behind the camera we decided to do a callback to the style of mid-80s Hong Kong action cinema, where we minimized camera movement, used editing generously, and choreographed pretty linearly. We did takes until we eliminated any mess in our moves and stuck to using the best angle for every move. If a move in the sequence wasn’t just right for the angle, we’d usually just cut to the next angle. While I was at it I came up with a shorthand term for this style – “no mess“.

We shot everything at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, where security tends to be notoriously strict but for some reason found no reason to bother us. We shot most of it on the trusty Sony NEX-FS100 and the first-person stuff on the GoPro Hero3 Black. Lorenz says we shot it for 4 nights but I seem to remember it taking 5. Each night was cold and sometimes wet, and Lorenz got sick in the middle of it but pushed through for about 3 hours a night, totaling (by my memory) 15 hours of filming.

Back in 2003, Chelsea Steffensen and I embarked on our first feature film endeavor, a film he wrote called Immortal. We shot for three months under the sun in a Redding summer and one month in a freezing winter, encountered dozens of injuries, and finished the thing five years later. You can still buy the DVD at The Stunt People Store, but we’ve now made it publicly available because, hey, we just want you to see it. We went through so much pain to make this damn movie; I busted my eye socket and knocked myself out falling through a floor, Gavin got heat sickness, Chelsea broke his nose and big toe, we took on a haunted building for two weeks to make the end fight, and everyone got kicked in the nuts at least a dozen times.

We hope you enjoy this film. It’s all heart, kind of goofy, kind of serious, but the action’s still great.

Shaun Finney has released his second installment of Beast Mode, a reel of the latest indie action from across the globe, set to a rad song. If you’re new to the indie action world, then this is a great place to start.

The Stunt People Forum is also a great gathering place for indie action teams. Just go to the Independent Alley section to get your daily fix. Also be sure to check out Beast Mode 1, which is a similar compilation but of badass Hong Kong film clips.

Ric Meyers showed Death Grip at his kung fu movie panel, and I had the opportunity to meet James Lew before the panel. It was awesome. Though the crowd was an entirely different demographic than the one that attended our premiere, they laughed at all the same jokes. Afterward Ric had us all stand in front of a cheering audience.

All kinds of other awesome things happened too. Nathan met Eric Roberts, who signed a photo of him doing a stunt, sales were great, and I got to meet James Lew. Oh wait I said that already.

We’ve posted one of the many fights from Death Grip online for your viewing enjoyment. This is the “Knife Fight” between myself and Alvin Hsing. If you dig it, please spread the word about the theatrical premiere on June 30th, and keep an eye out at our online store for the DVD and Blu Ray!

After a 13-hour day syncing sound and putting the finishing touches on the final product, Death Grip is done. Here is the cover art for the DVD and Blu Ray that you can buy in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

DVD – Special edition with bonus features

Blu Ray – 1080p with a couple bonus features, but this one’s all about image quality

Key art by Joe Golling.

Now I’m off to the cave to finish behind the scenes. Johnny Yong Bosch’s interview just came in, and the damned making-of video The Life of Death Grip is already two hours long. But first, a full-night’s sleep.